OMG... re-reading Orwell's 1984 for the first time since about

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

1968 or so.
Holy shit. It is like a manual for what the US has become!

[TimeChaser]

1. Isn't it?

I read it about two years ago. Freaky stuff.

[sakabatou]

13. And I am the "Hagane no Progressive"

[aaronbees]

2. I've had that sitting next to my bed...

for awhile now and can't bring myself to re-read it yet. You're spot on about it as a manual -- just incredible.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Wanna really get scared? Try reading "It Can't Happen Here"

by Sinclair Lewis. You'll think you're reading nonfiction.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

7. I read that one recently too

Not quite as otherworldly as 1984, but yes, it is frightening.

[pnorman]

4. Also try "The Iron Heel", by Jack London.

Here it is on the web: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/London/Writings/IronHeel/

There are also versions available to download into your computer (or your PDA).

pnorman

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

21. Wow! Doubleplusgood book!

gives me doubleminusbad thinkcrimes!

[Clintmax]

5. I guess I need to re-read it then...

Haven't in YEARS an dI don't remember a THING about it. I've got a copy around here somewhere. This should be interesting.

[Wetzelbill]

6. I'm scared to read it

I never have. I read Animal Farm. Been meaning to read 1984. Just been scared to look at it and compare it to Bush and Co. It might really freak me out.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

8. Don't be scared. Read it.

Open your eyes. They are doing it.

[Wetzelbill]

12. Eyes are plenty open

to enough already. I don't need anymore confirmation. :)

[Book Lover]

14. Read it for free here

http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/

Don't be scared - read it.

[Wetzelbill]

20. ohh, nice link

I'll check it out. Not scared I should say. It gets me stressed out and pissed off to read all this stuff. I've been published on PNAC, so if I can handle wading through all that I can pretty much handle reading anything.

[khashka]

9. Scary, huh?

Once you've finished 1984, pick up a copy of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. It only gets scarier.

Khash.

[anarch]

10. yep...I'm pretty the rethugs thought it *was* a manual

speaking of scary stuff from literature, I posted this in the "books" forum the other day, but I don't think too many people ever look in there. it's pretty much a :tinfoilhat: fest, but I was really getting freaked out the other day...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=208x6943

[Arianrhod]

11. Believe it or not,

another good analogy to today's events is the 1980s miniseries "V", about an invasion of aliens whose tactics look an awful lot like what * has been doing.

My fav line in 1984 is, "You're only a rebel from the waste down!"

:)

[Xipe Totec]

15. If you think1984 is scary...

Here is a quote from the middle ages that makes my hair stand up straight (well, what's left of it). :blush:

Dumbing down the message for the bleating crowd:

"It is striking to see the most cultivated and the most eminent representatives of the new Christian elite, conscious of their cultural unworthiness compared to the last purists, renounce what they yet possessed or could acquire in the form of intellectual refinements so that they could make themselves accessible to their flocks. They chose to grow stupid in order to conquer. If this leaves us dissatisfied it is nonetheless impressive. This farewell to antique literature, often uttered by men fully aware of the circumstances, is by no means the least moving aspect of abnegation of the great Christian leaders of the early middle ages…. …Caesarius of Arles took this point of view further:

I humbly beg that the ears of the educated may be content to bear rustic expressions without complaint, so that all the Saviour’s flock can receive heavenly food in a simple and down-to-earth language. Since the ignorant and the simple cannot rise themselves to the height of the educated, let the educated deign to lower themselves to their ignorance. Educated men can understand what has been said to the simple, whereas the simple are not able to profit from what would have been said to the learned."

Jacques Le Goff
Medieval Civilization 400-1500
Barnes & Noble 2000

Logic does not exist in the vernacular of the American public. If you can't reduce your message to a sound byte that a moron can understand, you're screwed. The Repugs know this. They know that logic and subtlety is too hard for Amurikans to grasp. 1984, and Animal Farm are about simplifying the message.

The point here is that we (liberals and free thinkers) are becoming as irrelevant to American Politics as the Russian Intelligentsia was to the Russian Revolution. The Republicans have captured the attention of the great unwashed by reducing their message to a simple:

Four legs Gooood! Two legs, Baaaad!

And there we stand, in from of the stampede yelling: "Wait! That don't make no sense!"

While they trample over us.

very sad.

[Cathyclysmic]

16. I was going to reread it after the election

to spare my sanity. Preatty much what is going on now, huh?

[4_Legs_Good]

17. Animal Farm is even more to the point

really as to what is going on now. While I agree on 1984 for the most part, I don't think that each of our lives is in jeopardy quite the way Winston's is. Animal Farm, however works on a different level. I read it durring the buildup to the Iraq invasion and OMG, it was hilarious, uncanny and tragic all at the same time.

Hmmmmm, maybe it's time to re-read it to my 3 year old (The last time I read it to him was when he was zero, and I don't think he understood much of it).

Orwell was an utter genius.

david

[Lisa]

18. I wonder what kind of animal George W. would be?

Dan Piraro, a cartoonist, did a terrific satire book of the administration as "The Three Little Pigs", but for some reason I found that I had trouble picturing W as a porker. (Cheney, no problem!) I keep seeing him as some scared little woodchuck who's fronting for the pigs.

[Xipe Totec]

19. Who, Chicken George? n/t